PRMI Uses Olive to Source Software

Mortgage Industry Digital Transformation

We chatted with Corban Wells, Director of Product Management at Primary Residential Mortgage about finding best-fit solutions in Olive, and why that’s important for mortgage industry digital transformation. As PRMI evaluates these solutions and moves toward a more digital process for their customers, the biggest challenge is choosing the right vendors to work together in their existing tech stack. 

Primary Residential Mortgage (PRMI) is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has over 325 branches in 49 states. It was founded in 1998 and has grown to $11.7 billion in yearly funded mortgage volume. Plus, it services $9.3 billion of mortgages. The company has won numerous industry and local awards as a top mortgage lender. PRMI is a Mid-sized organization with 2000+ employees and is one of the top 30 lenders in the USA.

Corban’s team actively manages 15 pieces and oversees 50 pieces of technology that support HR, Accounting, Back Office, and Loan Origination. The team often reevaluates existing tech, swaps new tech, and finds new solutions to assist their business. PRMI’s Product Management Team uses Olive 6-8 times a year.

Industry: Mortgage Industry

A Quality, Cost-Effective way to Find Best-fit Tech

Two problems Olive solved for PRMI;

Lack of resources for RFD Development process. 

As a midsized company, PRMI  had no budget or capacity for a 2-3 person heavy RFD Development process. They were looking for assistance to do a better job with their vendor selection process and found Olive.

Every Vendor looks great until they are compared to specific business needs.

Every vendor PRMI comes across sounds like a good idea. It’s only when they compare 5,10, or 20 against each other, that they can confidently decide which is the best-fit tech vendor for their unique business needs. 

Trying to find that best-fit tech vendor when there is no vendor selection team or process is resource intensive. Olive was an excellent price point; they could effectively find and end up with the best tech vendors for the business needs. They didn’t have to go to the industry-leading one vendor by default and have not done so in any of the vendor selections they have completed. With Olive, they always end up with the best-fit vendor for their needs, even when it isn’t the most famous vendor with the most expensive version of the solution.

Olive VS Other Evaluation Solutions

PRMI chose to use Olive over other Evaluation Solutions as Olive represents clients anonymously to the dozens of potential vendors that they wanted to evaluate to find their best-fit tech solution. They wanted to streamline vendor collaboration on evaluations and avoid the constant barrage of vendor emails. Olive anonymously represented PRMI and filtered the vendor list to manageable groups before the vendors knew PRMI was considering them. This was beneficial to PRMI as many of the vendors that would never work for PRMI’s unique needs were taken off the list quickly, and PRMI could document why they were taken off the list. It made the number of heavy-duty investigations into vendors much lower, as Olive reached out to them and got the initial feedback.

PRMI’s Success with Olive

Vendor Selection for eClosing Process Solution

PRMI was searching for their best-fit tech vendor so that their borrowers could e-sign documents from their phone or computer and then show up in person at the title company to wet sign a few documents that are not regulated to be e-signed. The vendor selection process is difficult because of the market size. PRMI went into the evaluation thinking it was going to be one of the “top 3”. In Olive, they evaluated over 20 vendors. They went through the software selection process, and the vendor that best fit their needs was not one of the “top 3”. Without Olive, they would never have considered this vendor, as it was not on their radar.

Digital Transformation in the Mortgage Industry

Choosing the Right Vendors

The Digital Transformation of the Mortgage Industry is probably five or ten years behind other Industries. A major initiative for the mortgage industry as a whole is catching up. 

So many different pieces of technology and components are part of any organization’s digital transformation process. It’s not just one massive ERP system that will handle everything. As PRMI evaluates these solutions and moves toward a more digital process for their customers, the biggest challenge is choosing their best-fit technology vendors that will work together in their existing tech stack.

Implementation and Change Management

Implementation and Change Management are among the hardest things to get right for digital transformation. When PRMI evaluates vendors, they ensure that Implementation and Change Management is a top requirement. PRMI must be confident that the change management, training, and implementation are built as a vendor offering for their 2000 employees. This, in addition to the technology required, is what PRMI considers the right solution for their needs and, ultimately, a successful Implementation. Putting these key requirements at the forefront of each evaluation in Olive helps PRMI find the right solutions that drive transformation forward.

PRMI is now completing implementation of the e-sign vendor, and so far, it has been a smashing success. PRMI doesn’t have a lot of headcount devoted to implementation and change management, which was part of the vendor’s offering. Something to consider in future evaluations.  

Olive VS Full-Time Vendor Selection Professionals

With Olive, PRMI can get the same or better results from Olive if they had 2 or 3 full-time vendor selection professionals.

“We have a cost-effective contract with Olive that gets us the same or better results.”

PRMI ends up with a strong, effective decision that executives and board members support.

Using Olive to Review Your Existing Tech Stack 

The mortgage industry is chaotic right now. Some companies are going out of business and making huge layoffs. Half of the expected volume from last year is gone this year. Companies are not looking to add more technology to their tech stack. PRMI uses Olive in a proactive way to review their current tech stack and see if there is a better option out there when the contract is up for renewal. This is a slower year for volume in the mortgage industry. There is less revenue and no capacity to add new tech.

“We are excited about the opportunity to level up, rip it and replace our tech stack and make sure that what we’re ripping and replacing it with is the best option for PRMI.” 

PRMI is using Olive to make strong, effective decisions that executives and board members support.